The overall objective of these studies is to delineate the processes and events occurring during the synthesis, processing and assembly of the envelope glycoprotein of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). Towards this end we propose to characterize and define several aspects of the biosynthetic pathway(s) utilized in the synthesis of the oligosaccharide moieties of the VSV envelope glycoprotein (G). The goals of these studies are to delineate the mechanisms involved in the non-templated biosynthesis of the oligosaccharide moieties of glycoproteins and the reactions involved in the processing of viral envelope and membrane glycoproteins through the intracellular membrane matrix to the plasma membrane. These studies on the Golgi and post-Golgi processing of the VSV glycoprotein will further our understanding of the molecular events occurring during the segregation or "sorting" of glycoproteins and the maturation of enveloped viruses.